JournalofApplied Philosophy, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996

DISCUSSION ARTICLE

Revenge of the Philosophical Mole: Another Response to David Miller on Nationality

CHARLES JONES

ABSTRACT David MlUer has written extensively on the ethical value of the nation. A satisfactory response to Miller’s ideas on nationalism requires an assessment of the whole range of his writings on the subject. After stating the outlines of Miller’s conception of ‘nationality’, I evaluate the most important arguments for and against any attribution of ethical importance w the nation. FinaUy, I assess Miller’s commitment to conational ethical priority in the context of duties of distributive justice. My main conclusions are as follows. fi) MiUer’s conservative strategy of justification is unacceptable, and a critical strategy suggests several plausible arguments for valuing national attachments. These arguments are not conclusive, however. (ii) In so far as MiUer’s position depends on real historical connections between persons, it is susceptible w the objection from historical myth. (iii) Miller offers an unexpected and ultimately unsuccessjid response w the claim that national sentiments are partial and hence biased. (iv) Miller provides no good reason to believe that the duties of distributivejustice are owed in the first instance to conationals.

Introduction

In this paper my main objective is to consider the implications for normative political philosophy of theories which attach fundamental ethical significance to nations, and an analysis of David Miller’s contribution is, I believe, a useful tool in reaching that objective. In recent years, Miller has been developing some challenging ideas on the topic of nationalism. [ 11 National communities figure prominently in Miller’s version of communi- tarianism, where special obligations to co-nationals are founded on the ethically valuable national community. His work demonstrates that there is a version of nationalism which can stand up to ethical criticism; however, as I hope to show, Miller’s theory of nationality does not justify linking the duties of persons so closely to membership in national communities.

Miller cites an exchange between the Mole and the Rat in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the W i h s [2], in which the Mole is wondering what is to be found beyond the world of the river bank with which they are both familiar. ‘Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World’ [said the Rat]. ‘And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all. Don’t ever mention it again, please.’[3] The Rat displays complete indifference to the world beyond the river bank, a view which is a source of some concern for many moral philosophers, versed as they are in the ideas of universality, impartiality and equal consideration of all agents, regardless of geographical location. Miller does not endorse the

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Rat’s indifference, but he does defend the need for ‘some kind of equilibrium between the everyday and the philosophical, between common belief and rational belief, between the river bank and the Wide World.’[4] By contrast, I believe there is more to be said for the ‘philosophical Mole’ (Miller’s invention, since Grahame’s Mole fails to jump at his opportunity). Thls Mole asks the Rat, ‘What’s so special about this river bank? . . . Why is this river bank a better place than other river banks beyond the Wood?’ [5] Though I believe the truth lies somewhere between the two poles of nariond ullegiance allied to indifference to outsiders on the one hand, and outright denial of the ethical claims of nationality on the other, I propose to show that Miller’s arguments fail to take sufficiently seriously the claims of non- nationals.

My analysis has four parts. First I outline Miller’s characterisation of nationality. In the second part, I look at some arguments purporting to show the ethical relevance of national commitments. Thlrdly, I discuss reasons for rejecting the ethically foundational character of nations, and finally, I ask what obligations go along with national allegiance, with special reference to the obligations of distributive justice. At each stage my aim is not simply to record Miller’s ideas and arguments but also to subject them to criticism. The whole may be seen as an attempt to clarify one verison of nationalism and to show how the ethical importance of such a view does not fundamentally alter the duties persons owe to one another as human beings.

1. Miller’s Characterisation of Nationality

Before embarking on an outline of Miller’s views, it will be helpful to state what I take to be the main jobs to be done by an account of the ethical significance of nationality. We must distinguish two central aspects of the nationality debate, corresponding to two tasks for political philosophers. First, there is the problem of the proper characterisation of the principle of nationality. Dealing with this problem requires the statement of an ethically defensible conception of nationalism. Let’s call this the nariondism characterkarion tusk. Secondly, and of equal importance, there is the problem of delineating the form, content and strength of the duties conationals owe to one another, as well as the relation between these duties and other, more general duties to other persons (i.e. ‘outsiders’). [6] Let’s call this the dutiesfomdation tusk. The theorist needs to formulate explicitly which duties are owed to whom and why. The strength of duties to conationals will, of course, depend to a large extent upon the form of nationalism in question; similarly, justifications of special duties to conationals will appeal to the prior characterisation of nationalism. For both of these reasons, then, the second task awaits completion of the first; the complete formulation of duties and the statement of their supporting grounds await a characterisation of nationalism. Accordingly, my discussion of Miller’s views will outline his conception of nationalism in general before discussing his position on the duties persons owe to one another.

Miller’s characterisation of nationalism can be succinctly stated: a nation is ‘a community constituted by mutual belief, extended in history, active in character, connected to a particular territory, and thought to be marked off from other communities by its members’ distinct traits.’[7] Perhaps the central distinguishing fearure of a nation is that ‘a nationality exists when its members believe that it does.’ (81 Nations are communities of belief, and the particular features of any given nation will depend on the actual beliefs that members take as

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constitutive of membership. Since nations are belief-dependent entities, any proposed criteria of nationality which are independent of persons’ beliefs will fail in at least some cases to distinguish nations from one another. For example, common language has been put forward as such a criterion, and it does provide one mark of nationhood; however, its success as a distinguishing feature depends on the members’ belief that their fellow nationals must speak a common language. As Charles Taylor puts it, ‘nations exist not just where there is the objective fact of speaking the same language and sharing a common history, but where this is subjectively reflected in a people’s identification.’ [9]

One important nation-constituting belief is that the nation is an historical community whose forbears have toiled to make the nation what it now is. From this conception of an historical community there arise obligations of present-day members to carry on the national tradition: because the nation extends into the past, and into the future, the obligations arising from national membership are not ones that can be renounced as one might renounce obligations voluntarily undertaken. National communities provide the grounds for duties not only to one’s contemporaries but to previous and future generations - duties to the former, to carry on the national projects; and duties to the latter, to ensure that the national community is passed down to them in a healthy condition.

If Miller is correct about the impossibility of renouncing one’s historic national community (or aspects of it), one might think that the ethical claims of that community could not be denied. [lo] So it is worth pausing here to question Miller’s assertion. I believe that his denial of the possibility of renunciation is either false or unproven. It is false if it is meant as an empirical claim about what can and cannot happen, for the fact of historical continuity does not rule out of account the present generation’s refusal to identify itself with the national community as it has come down to them, even though it may make it improbable. It is unproven if it is understood as a normative claim about what the present generation can&tifiab/$ do. From the fact that the nation stretches across the generations it does not follow that one generation can have no good reason to repudiate various claims that ‘the nation’ makes upon it. Hence while nations may be ethical communities - one of Miller’s central claims for nations - national ethical communities do not necessarily generate duties which must in all cases be upheld.

The next two features are straightforward: nations are active communities, they engage in various activities together; and nations are tied to particular territories, nations are linked with homelands. The activist element seems undeniably important, for it would be odd to say that a community exists where ‘members’ fail to engage in activities in common. The territorial claim is slightly more controversial, at least in contemporary circumstances, in which there is ‘the real likelihood that, so to speak, the most powerful Croatian nationalists have no intention of living in Croatia, but carry Croatia around with them in North America.’ [ 1 13 Still, if there were no Croation homeland, and no appeal to one, either in the past or in the future, we may be hesitant to call the phenomenon in question nationalism at all.

The final characteristic, namely, the belief in the distinctiveness of one’s nation as against other nations, emphasises another element of a person’s belief-set which must be present for the nation to exist. We should note, however, the relevance of the obvious point that beliefs may be false: if members of a nation have false beliefs about the national past or about the distinctiveness of their nation, the ethical claims of the nation will be weakened, at least to the extent that false beliefs are not an acceptable basis for contested obligations. Miller recognises this problem and attempts to deal with it, and I will outline and assess his

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attempted move, a move designed to save nations from ethical oblivion, in the context of assessing the main criticisms of Miller’s principle of nationality in section 3 below.

2. What reasons are there for persons to value national communities?

With this outline of Nller’s conception of nationalism in hand, we can now search for reasons why nations should generate ethical obligations. We need an answer to the question, ‘Why should national communities be valued?’ There are at least two strategies to use in answering this question. The first, which I call the critical strategy, is to assess the value to individuals of belonging to nations. Here we might imagine persons without national allegiances and then consider how their lives might be less attractive than those of nationally affiliated individuals. The second strategy is more conservative, since it rejects attempts to justify national allegiances, and instead favours an approach which rationalises national attachments on the grounds that they accord with the way people actually think of themselves. On this latter approach, the search for universally applicable reasons for national commitments is not necessary. Miller in fact favours this strategy, especially in his 1993 Journal of Applied Philosophy article, ‘In Defence of Nationality’, though - both there and in the 1988 Ethics article, ‘The Ethical Significance of Nationality’ - he does discuss attempts to justify national allegiances on universal grounds. I now propose to describe and criticise what I call the consemurive strategy of rationalising national commitments.

The defence of nationality can start from the undeniable fact that people do have national allegiances and attachments. The role of the political philosopher, according to Miller, is not to reject such commitments if they lack a rational grounding, but rather to retain those commitments unless they can be shown to be flawed in some way. He should take national allegiances as given and then ‘try to build a political philosophy whch incorporates them.’ [ 121 In this way, Miller attempts to shift the burden of proof in political argument on to one who would deny the acceptability of undefended national commitments.

Miller’s claim that where we begin the task of moral and political theorising will have a marked effect on how we proceed, is highly misleading. As Joshua Cohen has said in criticism of a view similar to Miller’s - namely, Ahchael Walzer’s approach in Spheres of Justice - there is no real disagreement among theorists about where the theoretical enterprise should begin. [ 131 Kant, Mill, Sidgwick and countless others start their theorising from the commitments to be found in everyday moral and personal beliefs; they are led to philosophy by the problems and contradictions which arise when the attempt is made to understand and defend those commonsense views. Thus, from a number of common starting-points the views of theorists diverge. Where disagreement begins is in the attitude one takes in one’s theorising toward the commitments constituting that shared beginning. Two main attitudes present themselves: first, one can look for ways to incorporate people’s allegiances into one’s political theory (on the grounds, perhaps, that since ‘people generally do exhibit such attachments and allegiances’, those attachments and allegiances must have some acceptable rationale); or secondly, one can critically assess the ethical and other grounds for the commitments in question, in order to judge whether, say, (a) national loyalties as they are found in contemporary societies can meet objections purporting to show that they contradict other ethical beliefs also held by the citizens of contemporary nation- states - for example, sentiments of benevolence or generalised concern for other human beings, or (b) national allegiances fail to stand up to moral criticism more generally - i.e.

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whether or not that criticism can be shown to stem from the prevailing beliefs of citizens. Joshua Cohen’s criticism of Walzer’s approach in Spheres of Justice is that Walzer seems to want his philosophical account to end up by justifying the shared values of the community in question. Or, to put the point another way, Walzer’s view fails to question the community’s shared values, and for this reason it fails as a philosophical account of those values: the philosopher’s job is not merely to accept the norms he discovers in his own society; rather, he should subject them to critical scrutiny, thereby assessing their reasonableness. [ 141 The same criticism applies to Miller’s preferred approach to political philosophy: it is unacceptable to argue that nations should be valued simply because people value them.

Let us return then to the first strategy of justifying national commitments, what I call the critical strategy. Taking this tack, we do not accept that nations are ethically significant communities unless there are reasons for supposing that national allegiances have ethical value. Of the various reasons which might be offered, Miller focuses on the idea that national loyalty can provide the foundation for sentiments of solidarity which can in turn make possible mutually beneficial projects requiring substantial individual sacrifice. Without the communal feelings that national allegiance creates, it will be much more difficult - perhaps impossible - to put into practice any long-term plans for social improvement which require persons to give up something now for benefit in the future. This consideration brings up the importance of trust between people, especially whenever some difficult or risky enterprise best serves their long-term interests. I call this the argumentfrom the need for solidarity. This argument has considerable plausibility, and is especially significant in light of the redistributive practices characteristic of modern welfare states: if solidarity with fellow nationals can render consent to such practices more likely, then the nation may be an important object of ethical commitment in contemporary circumstances. [ 151 If, as Miller claims, ‘the nation is de f a t o the main source’ [ 161 of the solidarity needed to underpin duties of mutual aid in contemporary, largely anonymous societies, nations would appear to be indispensable. There is nothing in this argument, however, to rule out the extension of solidaristic attachments to the entire human race, regardless of national membership.

Another argument for the ethical value of nations points to the combined effect of (a) historical attachment and (b) commitment to worthwhile values. Together, it is claimed, these generate special ties amongst conationals: members of a national group who have shared a common historical past in which they or their forbears have engaged in ethically commendable activities have good reasons to recognise special duties to one another. The Canadian philosopher, Thomas Hurka, has offered a version of this argument, filling in the details by discussing the analogy with personal relationships. [17] In the case of my relationship with my wife, it cannot be only her possession of admirable qualities that grounds my special ties to her, it is also certain facts about our historical connectedness, facts that single her out from anyone else with similar qualities. I would not simply give up my attachments to my wife if I discovered another woman who possessed my wife’s admirable and desirable qualities to a higher degree, for that would constitute a denial of the value of the common past we share with one another. It is important to remember, however, that it is not only the ‘particular relationship of association’ [18] that gives value to the relationship. If it were only that, then if my wife changed such that she no longer possessed the qualities she once did - say, she no longer showed her characteristic intelligence, imagination, sense of humour, and care and concern for others - it would still make perfect sense for me to retain my attachments to her to the same degree. But it would not make

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sense, for my wife’s becoming uncaring and humourless would rightly alter my special ties to her, at least to some extent. [19] Justified partiality, whether to loved ones or to fellow nationals, thus has a ‘double basis’ which includes shared history as well as favourable general qualities. Partiality to conationals depends not only on the fact that we can point to a common past, but also on the general features the nation displays. National commitment to racial discrimination is not partiality-generating, while allegiance to equal opportunity is. This argument is plausible, but my present purpose is simply to note that it relies to some extent on the existence of a common national history. The objection I will now consider casts doubt on any argument that relies on the reality of a shared history.

3. Objections to conceiving nationalities as ethically foundational

I will now look at two criticisms of the view that nations have basic ethical value; 1 call them the objection from historical myth and the objection from the inadequacy of partiality.

The objection from historical myth runs as follows: Nations are manufactured; they are imaginary communities whose histories are to a large extent false. Consequently national loyalties are in part loyalties to communities which do not exist - after all, the communities in question are supposed to include those not yet born and those already dead. Obligations to compatriots thus lack a rational foundation. [20]

Miller’s reply to this objection appeals to ‘a distinction between beliefs that are constitutive of social relationships and background beliefs which support those constitutive beliefs.’ [21] For example, a constitutive belief in the case of friendship is ‘that each is willing to put hmself out for the other.’ Constitutive beliefs, then, are necessary conditions of the relationship’s existence, i.e. without those beliefs the relationship does not exist. Hence false constitutive beliefs imply the absence of the relationship. Background beliefs, however, may be false in some cases, but a relationship can withstand false background beliefs provided that the constitutive beliefs are true. Thus a family’s mistaken belief that one of its beloved, supported and suppomve members is biologicaly related to the rest (where the belief is mistaken because of a baby mix-up at the hospital), does not negate the worth of the familial relationships since that belief in direct genetic proximity is merely a background belief. As long as the constitutive beliefs of family members remain true - for example, they actually are committed to mutual love and support - the relationship retains its ethical value.

This raises the following question: Are beliefs about the historical continuity of the nation constitutive or background beliefs? Miller’s position would seem to be that they are largely background beliefs [22], although ‘(some version of) the common story’ of historical origin and development must be true if the nation is to be an ethical community, so some very ‘general story with many basic facts not in dispute’ appears to count as part of a person’s nationality-constituting belief-set: ‘ . . she constitutive belief is only that there should be some national past.’ [23] The problem here is that Miller has saved nationality at the cost of reducing considerably the ethical attraction it might derive from an appeal to shared historical struggles. If the backward-looking searches of conationals turn up only repeated disputes between different elements within the national community - rather than a series of solidaristic joint projects carried out in the interests of all - then there may not be much left to ethically ground national allegiances, at least where the appeal to the past is concerned. I241 The case of oppressed groups, those whose interests have been consistently ignored for

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generations, represents a clear case in which the appeal to a ‘common national past’ may fail to generate any sense of duty to conationals. [25] The objection from historical myth stands. Insofar as nations as ethical communities are historical fictions, they cannot legitimately generate any obligations on the part of compamots for one another.

I now turn to the objectwnfiom the inadequacy ofpartidity. The idea here is that the appeal to nationality is ethically inadequate because it introduces an irreducible element of partiality into the deliberative process, and partiality is contrary to the widely accepted view that a moral perspective requires one to be impartial. To explain Miller’s response to this objection I need to say more about his characterisation of the national point of view.

Miller points out that national loyalties do not fit easily into the now common picture of two competing ethical standpoints, the personal - where agent-relative reasons prevail - and the impersonal - where agent-neutral reasons dominate. It is now standard to say that practical reasoning should give some role to both sorts of reasons. [26] First, we have the agent-neutral viewpoint, from which each person counts equally; then, there is the agent- relative viewpoint, from which an individual’s personal goals and integrity loom large, and where a moral space is created in which individuals can pursue their own personal projects and commitments. It might seem at first sight that national allegiances require the creation of a third category of moral reason, which we might call ‘nation-relative’ reasons. However, Miller denies that such reasons are sui generk, for ‘they appear to represent, not a different segment of moral life, but a competing way of understanding the concepts and principles that make up the impartial or agent-neutral standpoint (consider, for example, the different conceptions of distributive justice that emerge depending on whether you begin from a national or a universal starting-point).’ [27] National allegiances do not fit well into the common picture of morally relevant perspectives, and Miller says that it is this feature of national loyalties - i.e. that they reorient the ideas constituting the agent-neutral or impartial standpoint - that explains why national allegiances directly challenge the dominant view of morality in our culture, namely, the universalist view of morality.

Let us be clear about what Miller is claiming. If we accept the distinction between agent- neutral and agent-relative reasons, Miller claims that the ethical perspective of nationality represents an alternative understanding of what is a relevant reason from the agent-neutral viewpoint. A national ethic, therefore, competes with universalist morality, the latter being the dominant ethical conception, at least among moral philosophers. Miller identifies the impartial standpont with the agent-neutral standpoint, so we should understand him to be claiming that the national perspective is also an impartial one. This seems odd, since impartiality, as it is usually understood, rules out bias in favour of any person or group at the expense of any other, while the national view would seem to require such bias, at least in some cases. Of course, it may turn out that national favouritism can be justified - after all, some bias is unavoidable, and some may be required of us. But that possibility should not be confused with the claim that nationality is the proper heading under which we should understand impartiality. I believe Miller’s view cannot withstand careful scrutiny, and that we would be better advised to follow Thomas Nagel, who claims, contrary to what Miller holds here, that the national perspective ‘is just another basic aspect of the personal perspective, and it is not going to disappear.’ [28] Thus, Nagel does not identlfy the impartial and national perspectives; rather, he identifies the national and personal perspectives, or rather, he sees the national viewpoint as one aspect of the personal. He further thinks it will be around at least for the foreseeable future and that we should, therefore, take its existence into account in our theonsing.

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Is there any way to account for the strangeness of filler’s nationalitylimpartiality identity claim? Perhaps Mdler would respond to my criticism by claiming that I am begging the question, that his point is to question the dominant conception of impartiality and replace it with another which better corresponds with our commonsense notions about our obligations. In th ls context, my objection that filler’s conception contradicts the received view of impartiality merely restates what he is already, and admittedly, claiming. But is my objection question-begging? The issue here is one of the proper assignment of the burden of proof, and since it is Miller who is rejecting the received view of impartiality and substituting what appears to be a form of favouritism, it is up to him to show that the national perspective should be counted as a version of impartiality. In short, my criticism amounts to a request for an argument where none has been given.

We should accept Miller’s claim that nationalism may be, but need nor be, a reactionary doctrine; and if nationality can be philosophically respectable, perhaps its respectability can be found in its superior fulfillment of the requirements of impartiality. Nevertheless, this point goes no way toward shoeolng how the national and impartial perspectives might coincide. The impartial standpoint may, in the end, suggest that the ethically preferred option is to accord priority to national allegiances and obligations. But even if this is the correct conclusion, it is distinct from the nationality-impartiality identity claim. There are two possibilities: (1 ) From an impartial perspective, it is plausible to encourage national loyalty, and (2) The impartial and national perspectives are identical. While (1) may be correct, it is different from (2), and if Miller is asserting (2), we have yet to see his reasons for doing so.

The proper conclusion, then, is to admit that the national perspective is partial; but this admission does not rule out accepting this kind of partiality in one’s ethical theory. For partiality is not ruled out by a proper understanding of morality; on the contrary, commonsense morality, which on this point can be vindicated, ‘actually requires us to be especially attentive to the needs of people we love and have special attachments to.’ [29] Some version of national partiality is probably the correct view (though I am not arguing that point here). What ultimately matters is that conational priority does not negate consideration of outsiders.

4. What ethical commitments go along with allegiance to one’s nation?

I will now consider the relation between the ethical obligations one owes to conationals and those owed to others. My focus is on one particular subset of moral duties, namely, the duties of distributive justice.

What are the implications for obligations of justice of the acceptance of the claim that nations are ‘ethical communities’? [30] It seems to me that any favouritism of conationals cannot, while remaining a moral appeal, make any claim about the absolute overridingness of obligations between conationals. f i l l e r agrees. His defence of nationalism - what he calls ‘nationality’ - is conditional: it ‘includes the condition that in supporting my nation’s interests, I should respect others’ national identities (and the claims that follow from them) as well.’ [31] This might be understood as the defence of one specific conception of nationalism, excluding those conceptions which allow nations to pursue any course of action as a means to upholding their national ideal. Moreover, I would add that where priority is given, it remains a prima facie priority, and is subject to denial whenever the claims of

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outsiders are of a certain strength. This is a fairly vague claim, but it stresses the important idea that, contrary to what some defenders of nationality might hold, no national moral priority claim has anydung like an absolute hold on persons. So conationals can make no exclusive claims of distributive justice on one another. That is, whatever strength ethical bonds have as a result of common national status, they are not such as to rule out the distributive justice claims of those lacking that status. But why not?

In fact, Miller does believe that ‘ [n] ational identities ground circumscribed obligations to fellow nationals.’ [32] To assess the plausibility of this belief we need to look at his reasoning in some detail. Miller claims that ‘our sense of national identity serves to mark out the universe of persons to whom special duties are owed; it may do this without at the same time determining the content of those duties.’ (331 The way of life of a nation is

expressed in the public culture. Various interpretations of the public culture are possible, but some of these will be closer to getting it right than others, and this also shows to what extent debates about social justice are resolvable. It follows that what social justice consists in will vary from place to place, but not directly in line with sentiments or feelings. A Swede will acknowledge more extensive obligations to provide welfare for fellow-Swedes than an American will for fellow-Americans; but this is because the public culture of Sweden, defining in part what it means to be Swedish, is solidaristic, whereas the public culture of the U.S. is individual- istic . . . This may still sound an uncomfortably relativistic view to some. What I have argued is that nationalists are not committed to the kind of crude subjectivism which says that your communal obligations are whatever you feel them to be. Membership of a national community involves identifying with a public culture that is external to each of us taken individually; and although we may argue with one another about how the culture should be understood, and what practical obligations stem from it, this is still a question to which better or worse answers can be given. [34]

We need to ask how we are to judge which answers are better and which ones worse. Why is the public culture of either Sweden or the U.S. justified at all? Miller has offered us no answer to this question apart from the claim that ‘what social justice consists in will vary from place to place,’ but this is true only if taken as a descriptive rather than as a normative claim. No doubt, Miller believes that the public culture of a nation is subject to alteration - he thinks this is one of the positive features of nationality - but here he appears to be saying that the critic of the norms of justice embodied in the national public culture can get no foothold, for those norms are simply given. To be Swedish is to recognise that one has fairly extensive obligations for the welfare of compatriots; to be American is to see that one’s obligations are less burdensome, and so on. It depends on the contingent fact that one’s preferred answers to questions about distributive justice have been expressed at some earlier point in the nation’s history! But why can’t social reformers introduce new ideas about justice, ideas which have no prominent place in the nation’s history?

Miller’s answer to this question is as follows: ‘Philosophers may find it restricting that they have tc? conduct their arguments about justice with reference to national identities at all. My claim is that unless they do they will lose contact entirely with the beliefs of the people they seek to address; they must try to incorporate some of Hume’s gross earthy mixture, the unreflective beliefs of everyday life.’ [35] But how much of Hume’s gross earthy mixture gets incorporated into a justifiable account of obligations of justice depends

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on the reasons that can be offered in support of the earthy mixture, and it is unnecessarily restricting to allow only certain sorts of reasons to be relevant in such discussions. Hence we return to Miller’s idea that ‘the unreflective beliefs of everyday life’ must be given their due, even, it seems, if those beliefs lack a coherent rationale. To this claim I reply that philosophers can engage with everyday beliefs without accepting them. To realise that such views are the data from which political argument must begin is simply to acknowledge that argumentation must, if it is to convince, proceed from shared premises. But the point of such argumentation is very often to show the weaknesses in accepted opinions and to change those opinions for the better. We are thus returned to the earlier point about the proper conception of philosophical starting-points, and again I maintain that the place from which we begm is not sacrosanct, especially since those disadvantaged or treated unfairly by the institutions justified by commonly accepted views have a legitimate claim to a hearing for their dissenting opinions.

Elsewhere, Miller opposes ‘a naive form of internationalism that is grounded on an inadequate view of ethics and that appears to offer a simple solution to the problem of international obligations but does so at the cost of losing touch with the way we acntully think about such issues.’ [36] This is question-begging, for the arguments against the ethical principle of nationality - at least insofar as that principle offers a justification for conational favouritism - may, if they have sufficient strength, lead us to change ‘the way we actually think about such issues.’

Miller maintains that we owe duties of distributive justice in the f i s t instance to conationals. As an example of a claim of distributive justice, f i l l e r considers the principle of distribution according to need. He says:

We do not yet have a global community in the sense that is relevant to justice as dismbunon according to need. There is no consensus that the needs of other human beings considered merely as such make demands of justice on me, nor is there sufficient agreement about what is to count as a need. It is therefore unrealistic to suppose that the choice lies between distributive justice worldwide and dismbutive justice w i b national societies; the realistic choice is between dmibutive justice of the latter sort, and distributive justice w i h much smaller units - families, religious communities, and so forth. [37]

Miller’s appeal to a lack of consensus is taken as evidence for denying cross-border duties of distributive justice. But, again, this begs the question against his opponents, since it is that very lack of consensus about whether every person’s needs should make some demands on all persons that is the object of dispute. Miller apparently does not think he is begging any important question here, for he continues as follows:

We may still be tempted to reply: if distributive justice can only function within communities with predefined memberships, so much the worse for distributive justice. Our concern should be with the sick and the starving regardless of membership and regardless of how we conceptualise our obligatons to them. The question this raises is whether we should think of ethical concern as a commodity in limited supply, such that if we intensify our concern for our fellow countrymen, we diminish our concern for those outside our borders. I have no space here to tackle this question properly, but it is worth saying that the picture of ethics implied in it is far from self-evident. Indeed a very different picture is intuitively

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more plausible: so long as different constituencies do not impose conflicting demands on our ethical capacities, a strengthening of commitment to a smaller group is likely to increase our commitment to wider constituencies. Empirically it does not seem that those most committed to distributive justice at home are in consequence less inclined to support foreign aid. [38]

Let us outline the dialectic of this passage. The imaginary objector accepts Miller’s (contentious) view of the conditions necessary for the assignment of obligations of distributive justice, but claims that we should care for the most needy first, regardless of membership in any communities, national or otherwise. Miller replies that ethical concern is not a commodity in limited supply, since caring deeply for the plight of conationals can actually strenghen our concern for outsiders. Hence commitments to fellow members of one’s nation can actually make it more likely that one will show concern for those beyond national borders.

I have a reply to Miller’s reply. We may accept the empirical claim he makes about the relation between local and global concern for others. A comparison of the foreign aid records of Sweden and the United States provides some evidence for that claim. Moreover, if commitment to conationals disappeared, it is not obvious that felt obligations to humanity would result; rather, there will be the danger of ‘a narrowing, rather than a broadening, of the scope of people’s sympathies and moral concerns,’ where individuals focus only on themselves and their families or particular racial or ethnic groups.[39] But, as Miller admits, there will be a problem where ‘different constituencies . . . impose conflicting demands on our ethical capacities.’ We will in many instances have to choose between seeing to the needs of conationals and of outsiders, and (since, as I have said, Miller’s refusal to accept worldwide obligations of distributive justice is question-begging) if more pressing needs make stronger claims, then foreigners will often rightly take priority. From his words we may infer that Miller sympathises with the claim that the sick and the starving should be helped, for he responds to the criticism not by denying this claim but by denying that national favouritism - i.e. conational priority - leaves the foreign sick and starving out in the cold. My point is that, where a choice must be made between meeting the needs of conationals or of outsiders, it will often be preferable to favour the outsiders. Miller might agree with this in some cases, but I see no reason for denying that the claims of outsiders are in these cases claims of distributive justice. The problem is that iffaced with the prospect of bringing about ‘distributive justice at home’ when that can only be achieved by withholding foreign aid, is it then correct to maintain that there is a prima facie claim in favour of the domestic obligation?

In closing, one point needs emphasis: nationalist attachments need not contradict the claims of cosmopolitan morality. This is a point made most clearly by Charles Beitz, who argues that cosmopolitanism ‘need not be indifferent to particularistic values such as the loyalties and affiliative sentiments characteristic of membership in cultural or national groups. If it is a fact (as normally it is) that membership in a distinct political community has value for the members of that community, then, on a cosmopolitan view, this fact should matter for practical reasoning. The important question is not whether it should matter, but how. . . . In fact, if membership in a flourishing community of a certain kind is a value for people, cosmopolitanism requires us to bring it into account.’[40] Hence national attachments can find a place in the cosmopolitan picture of the moral landscape; of course, bringing the importance of national values into account does not imply acceptance of all

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nationalist claims. The main point to make is that no nation-based ethical commitments can ever constitute the entire sphere of a person’s legitimate obligations. Where the legitimate interests of outsiders are of sufficient strength, the duties fellow nationals owe to one another will be overridden by the duties to outsiders. The basic claims of distributive justice - what we might call the basic rights to a moral minimum, i.e. physical security, subsistence, basic education and health care - are the most important case of claims with the requisite strength.

Miller himself acknowledges the role of the cosmopolitan perspective:

Although I have been resisting cosmopolitan attempts to deal with the issues of sovereignty and state borders entirely in terms of universal principles such as individual rights, individual consent and distributive justice, I should be the first to concede that trade-offs have to be made. The case for the nation-state is not that it spontaneously satisfies all the political ideals we might want to espouse, but that it uniquely embodies a distinct value that has no less a claim on us than these others. [41]

M y only disagreement with h s passage is that it contends that the value of the nation- state is equal to the values embodied in the claims of distributive justice. [42]

The philosophical Mole asked the question, ‘What’s so special about this river bank?’ We have seen the problems with the conservative strategy of answering h s question, and we have noted the problems with Miller’s arguments for the special claims of conationals. The topic of the justification of national partiality has hardly been addressed in my discussion, but I have shown that it is mistaken to simply assume the ethical relevance of nationality. We can therefore conclude that, even if the nation can in the end be the legitimate focus of some ethical claims, the philosophical Mole has been vindicated. [43]

Charks W. B. Jones, Depanment of Phhsophy, Lop, and Scientific Method & Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WCZA .ME.

NOTES [ 11 This discussion is based m a d y on four articles by DAVID MILLER: (i) The Ethical Sigmficance of Nationality,

Erh& 98 (1988); (ii) In What Sense Must Soaalism be Communitarian?, Social Phrlosophy and Policy 6 (1988-89). (iii) In Defence of Nationality, Journal of App[red Phtlosophy 10 (1993); and (iv) The nation-state: a modest defence, in CHRIS BROW (ed.), Polinid Reswruring in Europe (London: Routledge, 1994). See also, DAVID MILLER, Marker, Srare and Communty, Chapter 9: ‘Community and Citizenship’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). DAVID MILLER, On A’amndiry (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995), appeared too late to be considered in thls amcle.

[2] KENNETH GRAHAME, The Windin thr W a h s (London: Methuen, 1926). [3] Ibid., 16-17. [4] DAVID WLLER, In Defence ofNationahty, 15. [5] I&., 3-4. [6 ] Ttus way of putting the point is not snictly accurate, since a person’s general duties will not be owed only to

outsiders and not also to conationals. On the contrary, the set which makes up a person’s duties will normally mclude as well duties to conanonals which are owed to them simply because they are persons. That is, as a Canahan, I may have some nation-based duties to other Canadians, and as a human being I have some generally characterisable dudes to other persons - both Canadian and non-Candian - duties based on the interests persons have quite apart ffom their national attachments.

[7] MILLER, In Defence of Nationality, 8; The nauon-state: a modest defence, 141.

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[8] MILLER, In Defence of Nationality, 6; The nation-state: a modest defence, 138. [9] CHARLES TAYLOR, Reconciling the Solitudes (Kingston 81 Montreal: McGill-Queens, 1993), Chapter 3, Why

Do Nations Have to Become States? (originally published in 1979), 56. The question of the relation of language to national identity is interestingly addressed by Taylor, who makes a strong case for taking common language to be a necessary feature (though in some cases only implicitly) of any national identity. Where the national identity involves reference to more than one language - say, in the most plausible version of the Canadian identity, where French and English are accorded equal respect - national identity still makes essential reference to language. The possibility of such national identities shows, however, that no single common language is necessary for a nation to exist.

[lo] See In Defence of Nationality, 7, and The nation-state: a modest defence, 139, for the claim that the nation is ‘a community which, because it stretches back and forward across the generations, is not one that the present generation can renounce.’

[ 1 I] BENEDICT ANDERSON, The Psychology of Nationalism unpublished paper, 1994. [ 121 MILLER, In Defence of Nationality, 4. [13] JOSHUA COHEN, Review ofMichael Walzer, Spheres of*rice,30urnalofPhllosophy 83, 1986,467. [I41 JOHN RAWLS, Political Liberalism (New York Columbia University Press, 1993), 44n47, expresses his own

indebtedness to Joshua Cohen’s review of Walzer and says: ‘See especially . . . p. 468f., where [Cohen] argues that Walzer’s view about how political philosophy should begin does not differ essentially from Plato, Kant and Sidgwick. The difference is where Walzer argues it must end up, namely, with our shared understandings.’

[I51 See MILLER, The nation-state: a modest defence, 141-44. [16] MILLER, In Defence ofNationahy, 9. [17] THOMAS H u m , The Justification of National Partiality, unpublished paper, 1994. [I81 ALASDAIR MACINTYRE, Is Patriotism a Virtue?, The Lin& Lecture (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas,

1984), 4. [I91 Although it depends on the reasons why she changed, i.e. if she were suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, my

attachments would remain strong. This suggests that changes for which she bears no responsibility are not such as to alter OUT ehcal ties to one another.

[20] MILLER discusses this objection in The Ethical Significance of Nationality, 653ff., and in Market, Srare and Community, 241-45.

[21] The Ethical Significance of Nationality, 655. [22] Hence the falsity of some historical ‘stories’ does not nullify all historically-based ties between conationals. [23] The Ethical Significance ofNationality, 655.56. [24] The American historian Howard Zinn has claimed that the solidaristic stories of national glories are indeed

false: ‘Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex.’ HOWARD Znw, A People’s Hisrorj of the LIniredStares (London: Longman, 1980), 9-10.

[25] Cf. STEPHEN NATHANSON, Pambtism, Morality, and Peace (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993), 208. [26] See THOMAS NAGEL, Equality andPanialig (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991 ). [27] MILLER, In Defence ofNationality, 4-5. [28] NAGEL, Equaliry andParrtaliry, 177. [29] STEPHEN NATHANSON, Pamorism, Morality, and Peace, 27. [30] MILLER, In Defence ofNationality, 5. [31] Ibid., 15. [32] Ibid., 3. [33] Ibid., 14. [34] Ibid., 14. (351 Ibid. [36] The Erhical Significance of Nationality, 648, emphasis added. [37] Ibtd., 661.

[39] STEPHEN NATHANSON, Patnorism, Morality, and Peace, 21. [40] CHARLES BEITZ, Cosmopolitan liberalism and the states system, in CHRIS BROWN (ed.), Political Resmtcturing

[41] MILLER, The nation-state: a modest defence, 158-59. [42] I agree with many of the criticisms of Miller in MICHAEL FREEMAN, Nation-State and Cosmopolis: A Response

[38] Ibid., 661-62.

in Europe, 129-30.

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to David Miller, Journal of Applred Phhosophy 11 (1994), 79-87. But I thmk his account suffers from one central confusion, namely, he identifies UN ‘cosmopolitan liberalism’ with the liberal universalist position to which Mdler opposes his own view. But h s identification is inaccurate because it places the debate at the wrong level. If f i l ler gives us an account that is mended to justify the nariun-srure, his arguments should be countered by alternative accounts w h c h give us reasons to question the moral legitimacy of the nation-state. UN liberalism is perhaps justifiable by such an alternative account of our obligations, although it does have the added feature of accepting the sovereignty of nation-states, hardly a view opposed to Miller’s. The proper alternative to filler’s e h c a l perspective is indeed a cosmopolitan view, but by that I mean a general moral position that requires impaniality and the inclusion of all local points of view. See Beitz, ‘Cosmopolitan liberalism and the states system’, 124.

[43] I would like to thank Brian Bany and John Charvet for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. And, for its indispensable assistance, I acknowledge my debt to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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